


Pumpkins for Patria

by Lemurafraidofthunder



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pumpkin carving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2521784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemurafraidofthunder/pseuds/Lemurafraidofthunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pumpkin carving?” he asks. “Aren’t we maybe a little too old for that?”</p><p>“Where’s your sense of youth, Enjolras?” Courfeyrac laughs. “You’re never too old to have a little seasonal fun. Besides it’s also because an uncle of mine who grows pumpkins and he’s got all these leftover ones that don’t have the exact shape and size to sell to stores. He’s willing to give us a few for free, so I thought i could be fun to do together.”</p><p> </p><p>Les Amis host a pumpkin carving event for kids and maybe Enjolras has a little trouble making art on orange fruits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pumpkins for Patria

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notfromcold](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=notfromcold).



> This is a fic for [notfromcold](notfromcold.tumblr.com) for Les Mis Trick or Treat 2014 based on hir prompt _Combeferre & Enjolras & Courfeyrac adorable platonic fluff. Bonus if you can also include Feuilly :)_  
> I thought what better thing to do in this season than carving pumpkins?
> 
> Hope you enjoy it ;)

It all starts with Courf’ getting an idea. That man gets ideas like dogs get flees and mostly they’re ranging from kind of silly to outright crazy. The idea he gets this time is somewhere in between, if you ask Enjolras.  
  
“Pumpkin carving?” he asks. “Aren’t we maybe a little too old for that?”  
  
“Where’s your sense of youth, Enjolras?” Courfeyrac laughs. “You’re never too old to have a little seasonal fun. Besides it’s also because an uncle of mine who grows pumpkins and he’s got all these leftover ones that don’t have the exact shape and size to sell to stores. He’s willing to give us a few for free, so I thought i could be fun to do together.”  
  
  
The few pumpkins turn out to be a whole load full of odd-shaped and sized orange things. As in a truck filled to the brim and much more than the three of them could ever dream of carving. Not that Enjolras really spends his night dreaming about pumpkins.  
  
“Well… Maybe this a little too much,” Courfeyrac admits with a slow laugh as he’s standing next to the load of pumpkins. “But there must at least be something we can do with all these pumkins?”  
  
“Perhaps we could make something good out of it? Like I heard Feuilly the other day talking about how so many kids don’t get to carve pumpkins just because they’re too expensive for their parents to buy.”  
  
“We could host a pumpkin carving party! For kids and families who don’t have the means to do so themselves,” Courfeyrac exclaims and the lights in his eyes are almost too good to kill, Enjolras thinks. It does actually sound like a decent idea but there are challenges.  
  
“Where would we host this party? In one of our apartments? Or maybe on the street?” Enjolras asks. A frown appears on Courfeyrac’s brow and he folds his arms and taps at his own temple with a single finger. Enjolras can almost hear the phrase think, think, think in his mind and figures that if Courfeyrac was a honey-liking stuffed bear the picture would be perfect. He gives him time to think because Courfeyrac is good at coming up with ideas, but a slight cough brings both of their attentions on Combeferre again. He looks tentative as if an idea has just caught on and he’s apprehensive of scaring it away.  
  
“There is the possibility that the Musain will let us do it there,” he muses.  
  
“You really think that? Isn’t it kind of messy work to carve pumpkins?” Enjolras asks.  
  
“Well they do tolerate having us in the back room every week,” Combeferre says with a small smile.  
  
“Are you saying we make a mess?” Courfeyrac laughs and bumps his shoulder against Combeferre’s.  
  
“Sometimes we do, and they haven’t thrown us out yet. But it will probably take some sweet talking,” Combeferre says.  
  
“Challenge accepted,” Courfeyrac grins.  
  
  
By some miracle Courfeyrac charms the owner of the café to actual let them host a pumpkin carving event for children on a Saturday afternoon. He even does it well enough so that the owner offers to close down the cafe just for that and serve refreshments for free. The event ends up being a full grown Les Amis thing and everyone loves the idea, especially Feuilly who has always been very invested in doing things for the working class. They manage to pull off planning and getting out word in a short time, but they’re used to doing fast work even if it’s usually rallies or protests instead of events for children.  
  
On the day of the pumpkin carving event the Musain is buzzing with life and kids’ laughter. All of the Amis are taking part in some way or another.  
  
Jehan stares silently at the rather misshapen pumpkin in front of hir for almost half an hour. Then ze starts cutting into it without any kind of stencil or sketch. To Enjolras it doesn’t look like a traditional scary face, or even a nice one. Actually it looks more like ze’s making random scratches rather than a picture. When Enjolras sees it finished later though Jehan’s idea becomes clear. Into the skin of the pumpkin is carved a verse from _The Raven_ accompanied by a beautiful silhouette of the black bird.  
  
Both Joly and Musichetta are not so surprisingly capable with knives and they go around teaching the children how to cut in the right way so as to not cause any accidents. Speaking of accidents, Bossuet’s not allowed to help with the actual carving, but that doesn’t seem to bother him at all.  
“I know best of all that it would be a bad idea,” he says with a laugh. Instead he happily helps everyone else with scooping out the flesh of their pumpkins.  
  
Eponine, Cosette and Marius are circling through the room and giving the kids ideas for what to carve. They work the way that Eponine will suggest the most scary and horrifying things and Marius will squeak and propose something much nicer and sweeter and Cosette will then find a compromise that the kid will love.  
  
Grantaire has teamed up with Bahorel and they have begun stacking several pumpkins on top of each other grinning at joking at each other about their grand idea. It might also be a grand finished project if it’s ever finished but the two of them keep being distracted from their own work to help the kids with all kinds of things.  
  
In fact most of the Amis are interacting with the children and everything seems to be going well, which is possibly why Enjolras is suddenly pulled to a table with four extremely ugly pumpkins by none other than Courfeyrac. On his other arm he has Feuilly who had also been making sure that everything was alright. At the table Combeferre has his own seat and is currently contemplating a pumpkin. He smiles apologetically at Enjolras.  
  
“You two are not having any fun!” Courfeyrac says when he pushes them down onto a chair each. He gestures at the pumpkins. “So that’s what we’re gonna do now.”  
  
“It’s more than fun enough to see all these happy kids–“ Feuilly protests and starts rising from the chair.  
  
“I can’t carve pumpkins, Courf–“ Enjolras says at the same time and Feuilly stops in his tracks.  
  
“What do you mean you can’t carve pumpkins? Everyone can do that,” Courfeyrac says while scooping up one of the pumpkins into his arms like a baby.  
  
“I’ve never done it before,” Enjolras explains.  
  
“Well about time then,” Courfeyrac says and puts down the pumpkin in front of Enjolras. It mostly looks like a half-deflated football. He looks at Courfeyrac, intending to let him know that he’s not pleased with this, but Courfeyrac is so focused on his own pumpkin that he doesn’t even look up.  
  
“It’s really not that hard to learn,” Feuilly says, probably taking pity on Enjolras, and sits back down again next to him. He picks up a knife and grabs the last pumpkin. “Here, you start by cutting a hole in the top. The trick is cutting at an angle so you can use it as a lid without it dropping down.” After he’s done showing Enjolras how to do it Feuilly hands him the knife with an encouraging nod. Enjolras complies and tries his hand at it. It looked so easy when Feuilly cut into the pumpkin but Enjolras soon discovers it’s not that easy at all. But Feuilly doesn’t laugh at him, because he’s a wonderful human being with more patience than should be possible. Slow and steady, with a few errors here and there and quite the mess, Enjolras makes it through emptying the pumpkin from flesh and he can start actually carving.  
  
“What do you want it to be?” Feuilly asks while finishing scooping out flesh on his own pumpkin.  
  
“Something simple I think,” Enjolras says, eyeing the orange blurb without much inspiration. “A classic face would be easiest, right?”  
  
“You sure you don’t want the Drapeau Tricolore on your pumpkin?” Courfeyrac asks looking up from what seems to be an intricate version of a traditional scary face on his pumpkin.  
  
“I’m pretty sure halloween pumpkins aren’t supposed to be patriotic,” Combeferre points out while refining the wing on the moth he’s carving. Enjolras doesn’t know how he’s able to carve it so accurately from memory but it’s promising to turn out beautiful.  
  
“But if anyone would defy halloween standards for Patria, i would surely be our own Enjolras,” Courfeyrac laughs and Enjolras can’t help but smile, just like both Combeferre and Feuilly do. He knows he’s pretty big on the whole love of Patria, more than the average person.  
  
“I think I should stick to the easiest thing right now,” Enjolras says still smiling, “and I’ve seen the faces kids usually carve. I should be able to do that right?”  
  
Should be able to and actually doing it turns out to be vastly different things for Enjolras. First of all he’s not exactly very handy with the knife and it tends to get stuck all the time. Second, he doesn’t really have an eye for aesthetics like Grantaire or Feuilly. Just one look at Enjolras’s and Feuilly’s pumpkins next to each other shows how bad he actually is at this thing. Feuilly has chosen to do the same design so that he can show Enjolras how it’s done but they look very little alike. Where Feuilly’s is simple and precise and actually kind of charming, Enjolras’ design is crooked and almost every line is jagged instead of curved.  
  
“It’s… special,” Courfeyrac offers with a grin when the disaster pumpkin is finished. Enjolras raises an eyebrow.  
  
“You can call it ugly, Courf, it won’t hurt my feelings,” he says because he knows it’s worse than even the pumpkins carved by the kids. They at least have an imagination.  
  
“Now you mention it, it is kind of bad,” Courfeyrac laughs and puts his arm around Enjolras’ shoulders, “but you had fun doing it, right?”  
  
“Well, it was kind of fun,” Enjolras tries.  
  
“Only kind of? Are you suggesting that being in our company is anything but fun?” Courfeyrac teases him with a smile.  
  
“No, of course not,” Enjolras protests. His loves being with his friends. “My pumpkin is just so bad, especially if you look at all yours. They’re much better.”  
  
“But that’s because we’ve tried this before,” Combeferre contributes from where he and Feuilly are working on lighting tea lights for putting into the pumpkins.  
  
“Besides, this has been a success even if your pumpkin hasn’t,” Feuilly adds with a gesture towards the rest of the room, “just look at all the kids who got to have fun.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s more important,” Enjolras agrees and Courfeyrac squeezes his shoulder.  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](lemurafraidofthunder.tumblr.com)!


End file.
